For some turtle species, the temperature of eggs determines whether the offspring are male or female — a trait that scientists feared could leave the reptiles vulnerable to extinction from climate change. But a team of researchers in China and Australia have found the embryos ...
Turtle-shell divination conducted at Imperial Palace in Tokyo ahead of key succession rite
The ceremony selects Tochigi and Kyoto prefectures to provide the rice for the upcoming Daijosai offering ceremony in mid-November.
Hong Kong court sentences Japanese turtle smuggler to one year in prison
A 43-year-old Japanese man was sentenced to one year in prison by a Hong Kong court Tuesday for smuggling 60 endangered turtles from Japan last year. Naoki Hiraguchi was caught with 60 live Ryukyu black-breasted turtles that were placed in two boxes inside his checked-in ...
Snapping-turtle expert in Chiba leads battle against invasive species
Takeshi Imazu's daily tasks are far from what a typical prefectural official handles. For more than half of the week, he goes out to the Inbanuma marsh of Chiba Prefecture either to capture or study snapping turtles, a freshwater species that threatens local biodiversity. Snapping turtles, ...
A green turtle that was saved after being trapped in a fishing net earlier this month has been a popular draw at a museum in Tottori Prefecture. The female turtle, 60 cm in length and believed to be 10 years old or younger, will be ...
Alien red-ear sliders greatly outnumber Japan's own turtles
Invasive red-ear slider turtles now vastly outnumber endemic Japanese turtles and are causing significant stress to the ecosystem, the Environment Ministry said Friday. A study has put the number of red-ear sliders at 8 million, eight times the total population of endemic species. Originally from the ...
Temporary ban placed on exports of some Japanese pond turtles as demand from China soars
Exports of a rare kind of Japanese pond turtle have increased sharply this year, prompting the government to impose partial restrictions on shipments to conserve the species. The nihon ishigame (Japanese stone turtle) is in strong demand in China and Hong Kong as an ingredient ...
Canadian smuggler with turtles in pants pleads guilty in U.S.
A Canadian man caught at a border crossing with 51 turtles taped to his body pleaded guilty Tuesday to smuggling or attempting to smuggle more than 1,000 of the reptiles out of southeastern Michigan. Kai Xu, 27, would order turtles online and travel to the ...
West Japan Railway Co. and Suma Aqualife Park in Kobe have jointly developed a system to prevent turtles from getting caught between railway switches. They found out from experiments that when turtles trying to cross the tracks fall into the space between them, they have ...
One of the Ogasawara Islands is seeing a spawning migration peak for green sea turtles born after World War II. According to findings released Thursday by the Ogasawara Marine Center, there were 1,982 nests on Chichijima in 2013, the highest since the center started the ...
Zoos a haven for wild animals, keeper says
Zoos play an increasingly important role in the preservation of wild animals, says Daisuke Kiryu, a keeper of reptiles at Yokohama's Nogeyama Zoo, which is known for successful artificial breeding of turtles designated as endangered species. "We succeeded in breeding the radiated tortoise and Indian ...
